New Release Offers Consolidated Support Strategy

Cisco IOS Release 15.0(1)M initiates a consolidated support strategy for short and long releases to provide greater consistency in new feature release and rebuild schedules and simplify the software selection process. This includes proactive individual M and T release support policies, enhanced release numbering, and clearer software deployment with concise migration guidelines.

Release 15.0(1)M is the first in a series of individual Cisco IOS Release 15 M and T releases, each of which delivers aggregate functionality through its predecessor, and introduces new technology and hardware support such as:

• Service Advertisement Framework (SAF), enabling network applications to dynamically discover the existence and configuration of other networked applications and services.
• Flexible NetFlow and Network-Based Application Recognition (NBAR) integration, combining the strengths of both features to provide Layer 2-7 per-flow application visibility and statistics.
• Embedded Event Manager Version 3.1, introducing significant enhancements for event detection, notification mechanisms, and command execution capabilities.
• Support for the Cisco Integrated Services Routers Generation 2 (ISR G2) 1900, 2900, and 3900 series, helping businesses and service providers transform the branch office experience and better enable rich-media applications.
• Software Activation, enabling a "Services on Demand" model to deliver operational savings through reduced truck rolls, easier software ordering, simplified software management , and efficient new feature deployment.

Release 15.0(1)M is an extended maintenance release that will ship every 20 months allowing customers to qualify, deploy, and remain on releases longer with active bug fix support.

The Release 15 series aggregates feature inheritance from Releases 12.4T and 12.4 Mainline.